A facile fabrication of Cu₂O nanowire arrays on Cu substrates

Nanomaterials play an important role in modern science and engineering. The ability to fabricate nanomaterials with high quality and low cost is a primary stage for further discovering their applications. This research article presents a facile fabrication of Cu₂O nanowires on Cu substrate. It was found that simply heating Cu in air leads to the growth of Cu₂O nanowires. The Cu₂O nanowires are aligned in one direction and vertically grown on the Cu substrate. The growth process of nanowires was tracked by SEM and the root at the initial stage was observed by HRTEM. The access to oxygen is critical to the growth of Cu₂O nanowires and the patterned nanowire arrays can be readily fabricated by using a mask. The method reported here offers a great potential route toward a large scale manufacture of Cu₂O nanowires.